Farmers and Merchants Bank Building

Also known as: Old Eastover Post OfficeMain St., Eastover, South Carolina

Photo

Farmers and Merchants Bank-National Register Site# 86000541

Constructed in 1910 and was used as a bank until 1937, then as a Post Office and Library. There was a Doctor's Office upstairs and rental rooms for single men. The boll weevil disaster of 1910 and early 1920's and then the Great Depression marked the end of the town of Eastover's hay day. It became just another dying train track town. In the late 60's and 70's when large groups of people moved away the train quit stopping and the Greyhound Bus took Eastover off its route and it became just another place on the map.

Photo taken by Grover Rye

Map

Street View

Description

The Farmers and Merchants Bank Building is significant as a good example of early twentieth century commercial architecture. Designed by the Columbia architectural firm of Wilson and Sompayrac and constructed by Weston and Brooker in 1910, this building was planned as a multi-purpose building. It is a two-story, brick and cast-stone building with an angled corner entrance as its primary feature. In addition to the bank, accessed at the corner, the building housed the W. M. Hunt Furniture Store on its Main Street façade. Between the two an open street entrance led upstairs to a doctor’s office and rental rooms for single men. Farmers and Merchants Bank was granted its charter of incorporation on April 12, 1910, and was established by Richard Singleton and Julian A. Byrd with $25,000 in capital. The bank remained chartered until June 22, 1954, when incorporation was cancelled. The bank had apparently ceased operations some time before that. It appears that Farmers and Merchants Bank survived both the boll weevil disaster of the late 1910s and early 1920s, and the early years of the Great Depression; however by 1937, the portion of the building occupied by the bank had become a post office and library. Listed in the National Register March 27, 1986. - SCDAH